Slate Magazine - Should the United
States ban a Japanese "rape simulator" game?
"Considering the impossibility of policing the Internet, as well as the
availability of English RapeLay translations and forums for years before any
politician caught wind of the game, it's unrealistic to think that the game
could be banished from America. Very few Japanese developers make an effort
to sell eroge to the West, and those that do, like Peach Princess and
G-Collections, make content modifications to suit foreign norms and laws.
(For example, all underage characters' ages get rounded up to 18, no matter
how young the character looks.) These Westernized versions are sold in the
United States via import sites like J-List and Play-Asia. Neither company
sells RapeLay, but they do offer the popular eroge Yume Miru Kusuri. That
game, while more edgy than it is violent, does focus on sex-crazed,
underage-looking high schoolers with drug problems and suicide fetishes.
RapeLay is appalling, but titles like Yume Miru Kusuri—sold in America after
being unconvincingly modified so the protagonists are "18," making it tough
to peg the games as outright illegal—would make far more constructive
targets for political outrage."

Edge
Online - Why the -Age of Steam- May Not Last? By Brad Wardell, CEO of
Stardock, operator of Impulse.
"It's far too soon to assume that Steam will continue to dominate five years
out. Thus far, it has largely operated without serious competition. With
other services such as Impulse, Games for Windows Live, Amazon.com,
GamersGate and others upping their own services with unique and compelling
features, expanding their catalogs, and focusing on providing good customer
experiences, I would be very surprised if Steam continues to have such a
large market share (as a percentage) even 18 months from now."

CNET - Is the
video game industry losing the PR battle?
"Based on what I've seen so far from the industry, it's willing to take a
beating from government, lawyers, authors, and concerned groups and it does
little to fight back. Meantime, I receive e-mails from parents on an almost
daily basis asking me why video games are so bad for their kids. Whenever
that happens, I write them a short but informative e-mail saying, 'They're
not as bad as some groups say and here's research to prove it.'"